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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Getting to Know The Bankster and Author Ravi Subramanian

Its unusual that a bespectacled, serious and man of numbers churns out one thriller after another on the banking world, amazes the readers and sets a benchmarkk for Indian thriller - a genre explored less, a genre feared, a genre difficult to plot but mastered by this amazing author. He needs no introduction but personally I have felt he is one of the most humble and approachable authors, despite being a best seller. He is someone who acknowledges each critique and works on improving his writing by taking criticism positively. The fruits of the same being each work of his better than the previous one. Here we have with us none other than Ravi Subramanian.

1.When
did you begin writing?

A: Writing for me was a journey
I embarked on very late in my life. My first book, “If God was a Banker”, was
pretty much my first attempt at writing fiction. Yes, had written a few short
stories, a few poems when I was a teenager, pretty much the way most teenagers
do. But serious writing began with If God was a Banker, in 2006.

2.What
is your motivation behind the same?

A: The prime motivation behind
writing a book was a bit philosophical. I wanted to leave a legacy behind, to
be remembered. And I felt, at that time, that long after I am gone from this
planet, a book in some library in some remote corner of the earth will remind
people that someone by the name Ravi Subramanian walked the planet. No one
remembers CEO’s, put people do remember creative outputs.

3.What
was your journey like to publish the
first book? Anything particular that you will like to share?

A: It
was an amazing journey. I would recommend that everyone desirous of writing a
book, should do so. The journey of publishing ones book, and the joy of holding
your book in your hand is the closest any man can come to experiencing the
emotions a woman goes through in childbirth. I went through the same.

I
would consider myself lucky in the sense that I did not have to struggle to get
a publisher. I sent the completed manuscript to four publishers and after two
declines, one of them agreed to publish. So it was not much of a battle.They say that the easiest thing about
publishing a book is writing it. The battle for eyeballs, for presence in
stores, for getting stocked by retailers, for making sure readers buy your
book, starts after that. I also had to go through the same challenges.

4.Apart
from being a banker what attracts you
to writing about banking?

A: I love writing stories based in the banking
and financial services industry. It is an industry where you have money,
people, relationships, crime, fraud, investigations, sleaze and greed – all
ingredients which make a great potboiler. Strangely not many people write
stories set in the backdrop of this industry, which touches every individuals
life in some way or the other. I see myself writing a few more stories based in
this industry for sure.

5.Tell us a little
bit about your book The Bankster?

A: THE BANKSTER is a first of its
kind corporate Thriller set in a foreign bank. The story juxtaposes real life
incidents, which people can relate to both in their personal and professional
lives with larger than life crime, which leads to intrigue and awe.

A Murder mystery, that too set
in a bank ; a banking story that takes you to Angola, Vienna, Mumbai and
Kerala; a story that takes a strange turn after the Fukushima nuclear disaster
in Japan – where else will you get all this and more in one book. And the icing
on the cake is the ending – I challenge any reader to read the book, and guess
the ending before he reaches the 300th page.

6.Is there anything you find particularly challenging
in your writing?

A: The
stories that I write are set in the backdrop of the banking industry. It is
quite a challenge to explain the most complex of banking transactions to the layman,
non banking reader in the simplest of terms, and yet not sounding like a
banking manual. Its very difficult to make sure that you don’t cross over the
line and start sounding like a training program. As someone once said, Simple
Writing is damn hard work.

7.What
is the best part about being an author in your opinion?

A: The excitement to be able to
create something new, the joy in seeing the story evolve, the ecstasy of seeing
the final book in your hand, the ups and downs of good and bad reviews… all
these add to the thrill and joy of being an author. The sheer ability to create
characters out of blank pieces of paper is magical.

8.Who are your favorite authors and what is it that
really strikes you about their work?

A: My favourites are John Grisham and Jeffrey
Archer. John Grisham for his brilliant positioning (you think of stories set in
a legal backdrop and you think of Grisham) and the way he structures his book.
Jeffrey archer for his lucidity, clarity of thought and brilliant flow. I
simply love his "once upon a time…" style of storytelling.

9.Broadly
what are your next projects?

A: My next book comes out in
September. It’s a thriller. You can read more about it here. http://on.fb.me/11SxIWT
. I will be revealing more about the book in days to come.

10.Will
you always write novels around Banking?

A: As I have earlier
said, I will surely write a few more books in this genre, because there are a
number of stories to tell. Whether I will experiment with any other
genre is a difficult one to say. The day I feel that I am not able to churn out
fresh stories set in the enormously sexy global banking industry, I will
definitely stop writing about bankers and banking.

11.What is your opinion about writing as a full time career?

A: As
of now, I don’t intend to make writing a full time career. The reasons for the
same are not commercial. Writing as a profession has been kind to me and I make
enough through writing to live a good life. However, today I hold a day job,
and I am not dependent commercially on my writing. Also having a passion
outside of work, makes work life that much more enjoyable. As a consequence, I
end up enjoying both my day job as well as my writing stint. The day I quit my
job and become a full time writer, books will become a necessity. It will
become a job. A Job that has to be done. And that’s when I run the risk of writing
becoming a chore. A boring chore. It will lose its charm. I dread that day, and
hence I might never quit my job and become a full time writer.

12.What do you think about the current trend of writing in India? Is the current lineage of
Indian authors ready for an international audience/market?

A: Indian writing has
definitely evolved over the last decade. More so in the last five years. In the
days when If God was a Banker was launched, book stores would struggle to fill
up a rack with Indian Authors. These days they struggle to find space. Walk
into Crossword and you would now find three or four racks filled up with Indian
authors. The landscape of a book store has changed because of Indian Authors.
Retailers are more willing to stock new writers and thus give them a pedestal
to sell their products from.

This willingness of the
retailer to stock up on Indian books and the increased demand and a new found
interest from the reading population, for books written by Indian Authors, has
made this segment lucrative for publishers too. These days, unless you have a
very bad product, it is quite simple to get a publisher to put you out.

That said, the competition
is intense, and it is that much more difficult for an author to differentiate
himself and stand out in this market and be noticed. The only word of caution I
want to sound here is that before we celebrate the creative resurgence of
Indian writing, we need to realize that most Indian authors write from their
experiences – college, IIM’s / IIT, romance etc. And experiences give you
fodder for at best a couple of books. Beyond that you need to really leverage
on your creative instincts. How many of these young first time authors go on to
write more books and establish themselves in this field is still to be seen.
The day these writers go on to write their second third and fourth book, and
give vent to their creative instincts is when I would say that the creative
resurgence of Indian literature has happened.

13.Any advice for budding writers?

A: Most people who want to write, never even begin their
journey because of two reasons – firstly they are unable to find time to write
and secondly they keep waiting for the entire story to take concrete shape. The
former is easier to handle throug proper prioritisation of time spent on daily
activities. Asfar as the latter is
concerned, I wish to tell aspirant authors that most of the writers do not wait
for the story to take shape from end to end, before they begin writing. All they
need is an idea. For example in The Bankster, the story has taken a completely
different shape from what I had envisaged when I began writing. So if you have
an idea, start writing. Like any other journey, the first five pages you write
will give you ideas for the next ten and thereon the story will evolve. This is
the best way to give yourself a realistic chance of finishing the all elusive
book. Times have never been so good for an Indian Author as they are today.
Publishers, distributors, bookstores and readers are all laying out the red carpet
for you. Back yourself and prepare to walk bravely on the red strip.

14.Any message for your readers?

A: I would like to say a big
thank you to all my readers for their love and support. Have a small request.
In case you find anything in my books which you did not like, or felt could
have been better. Please feel free to write to me at info@ravisubramanian.in or raviauthor@gmail.com. I seek out and solicit negative feedback.
It has only helped me improve. I remember when I wrote If God was a Banker, I
got extreme reactions – some good, some not so good. When I wrote my next book,
I went back to each of those who had given me a negative feedback, telling them
that their feedback had been taken seriously and addressed in the second book.
As readership base increases, this becomes difficult to do, but one thing I can
assure you is that negative feedback will never be ignored. I have come this
far with your support and owe my career as a writer to you readers out there.
Thank you for everything.

I thank Ravi Subramanian for honest and in-depth response to all the questions.